Massey CEO Don Blankenship to retire Dec. 31

VICKI SMITH and MICHAEL FELBERBAUM, Associated Press

Massey Energy Chairman and CEO Don Blankenship announced Friday that he will retire at the end of the month, finishing a nearly 30-year career that included big profits for the company but also fights with labor and federal regulators and a recent mine explosion that killed 29 people.

The company's board of directors named current president Baxter F. Phillips Jr. as Blankenship's successor, effective Friday. Blankenship's retirement date is Dec. 31.

"After almost three decades at Massey it is time for me to move on," Blankenship said in a prepared statement. "Baxter and I have worked together for 28 years and he will provide the company great executive leadership."

Blankenship leaves at a time when Massey's safety practices are under scrutiny by the federal Mine Safety and Health Administration and the West Virginia Office of Miners' Health, Safety and Training.

The company is under investigation for the April 5 explosion at its Upper Big Branch mine in West Virginia that killed 29 and injured two. The blast was the worst U.S. coal mining disaster since 1970 and the subject of civil and criminal investigations.

Blankenship was expected to meet with state regulators on Dec. 14 as part of their investigation.

Last month, Blankenship blamed the explosion on a sudden rush of natural gas into the underground coal mine. He added that the infusion could have been mitigated if MSHA had not forced Massey to change its ventilation plan in the mine.

MSHA investigators have said a buildup of coalbed methane and coal dust might have contributed to the blast.

Blankenship grew up beside the railroad tracks a tiny border town in the Tug Fork River valley along the Kentucky-West Virginia border. He was raised by his single mother, who owned a gas station and grocery store. He was an accountant who worked for two baking companies before joining Massey's Rawl Sales & Processing Co. in 1982.

Bill Raney, president of the West Virginia Coal Association, called Blankenship "one of the most aggressive, intelligent and certainly one of the most outspoken leaders in the coal industry.

"I don't think it's any of my business whether it's good or bad, I've just observed that Don's been quite a leader over the years," Raney said.

Blankenship rose in the company's ranks, in part, for his handling of a labor dispute involving the United Mine Workers of America. Massey has been strongly anti-union under Blankenship's leadership. He keeps a television set in his Kentucky office that was hit by a stray bullet during a dispute.

And as he rose through the company, his personal fortune increased as well. According to company records Blankenship earned $17.3 million last year. That was down from $19.7 million in 2008. The bulk of Blankenship's 2009 compensation came in a performance award of $11.5 million, nearly double the $6 million he earned in 2008.

UMW spokesman Phil Smith called the announcement the end of a long, difficult chapter in the coal industry's history, "one that all too often been associated with human tragedy."

The UMW, which has fought with Blankenship for decades, called for his removal at the company's annual meeting this spring, after the April explosion.

"We are gratified that this action has finally occurred," he said, adding that it's an opportunity for the industry to step away from its negative image.

Since the Upper Big Branch explosion, public attention has been focused on Massey's underground safety record. The company also has a history of environmental violations at its surface mines.

Environmental activist Larry Gibson, who has long battled both Massey Energy and the practice of mountaintop removal coal mining in Appalachia, said anyone who's watched the coal industry in the months since the Upper Big Branch explosion knows "he's been on the chopping block."

"All he's done in the past few years is bring negative attention to Massey," said Gibson, who lives on Kayford Mountain in southern West Virginia.

Based in Richmond, Va., Massey is the nation's fourth-largest coal producer by revenue. It operates 19 mining complexes in Virginia, West Virginia and Kentucky.